Too Much NO

I'm drawing a line when it is 'Too much NO' - no three times to coming in from outside, no to having a bath with duckies and bubbles, no no no no no...

I asked: 'really no duckies?'
Esme: 'no duckies.'
I asked: 'really no bubbles?'
Esme: 'no bubbles.'
I said: 'You are coming in. It's dark out here. Come on...'
Esme: 'Nope.. nope... (wander off a bit further)'

So.... Mumum hauled her in (crying no no no no get down) and downstairs to give her a shower (explaining she had said 'no' to bubbles when she demanded I fill the tub). I saw some 'oh no' recognition when I said that. Esme said NO bubbles, NO duckies, so.. No bubbles and No duckies - we go upstairs now.

I put her into pajamas and still saying 'no no no get down' and I said if she could calm down by the time I got her pajamas on her she didn't have to go to bed right then - 'no no no no' OK. Too much NO. You're going to bed. I put her in bed and she flops on her pillow and puts her feet under her blanket and doesn't say another word. Asleep within three minutes!

We'll see if that has any effect on her attitude tomorrow! I've had 'too much' of the 'no no no's. She doesn't refuse to listen to everything - she is still a pretty good girl, but she has been giving many more casual 'no' and 'nope' to things she doesn't want to do and thinks she can get away with not doing like coming for a bath, finishing her food, going to bed, picking up her toys, getting ready to leave Grandma's etc... and Mumum is going to get a bit more hard-nosed about it.

toddler napzone!

napzone achieved! I'm working on a pair of slippers and have half of a pink dress / top made for Esme that was started yesterday. I did make kangaroos out of it before :) There are white sleeves cut out for it, too. She has finally collapsed and taken a nap, after begging piteously for ice cream and fish sticks for about fifteen minutes after already consuming orange juice, two chicken legs, a cookie AND a piece of pizza.

She's really needed to take a nap both of these days - and refused it up to the last minute. Mark said she thinks if she takes a nap Mom will go to work and not be here when she wakes up... :( Some days it's tough being a toddler - I am thinking! Plus it is all rainy and cold outside and dark....

Her wooden blocks came at the post office today, and I am definitely saving them for her birthday. She saw me open the box but only got two out of it - and then they went on a high shelf. It was Ebay - so I had to open it to verify :)

games for homeschooling preschool

paper dolls: color and cut and printing out things that are flipped right-and-left and in two different colors (purple kitties and white kitties) in quantity, cutting them out and putting them in circles and lining them up in rows. She wouldn't do that at Grandma's house, though -- because Grandma had bubbles!

She was playing with blocks again making places for piggies and cows to jump in. And the chain and funnel came back for an appearance today. After some serious tummy troubles this afternoon it seems the chicken leg lunch we fed her is helping sort all of that out along with two large cups of orange juice mixed with water. She was seriously grouchy and upset most of the morning - wanted everything her way but nothing of it a second later... etc.. usual attitude for her when she is overtired, wet, ready to 'explode' etc...

She is now standing on a chair happily eating a lollipop (which Daddy decided she was now good enough to have) and being very good playing with her paper doll. 'Mumum come play a shirt green shirt please?' hehe

green dress fits.. mostly

This is the new green top, now finished. I hope the front relaxes some after a few washings, it kind of sticks up some - that could be the fabric choice and it could be the newness of the fabric. She does like it, and besides that one little bit the dress fits very well. If I had had enough of the print green it would have been perfect - that fabric is soft and drapey.

We've been having a lot of playing and a lot more 'Bossy Cow' attitude today. She wants to pick everything at the store - have her TV do exactly what she wants when she wants it to (my tv, no mine mine!). And, she really really wants to go see Grandma - but I told her Grandma wasn't there when we called, and she was too cranky after that to call again. I think she really needs a NAP. Maybe she can see Grandma tonight, maybe tomorrow. All we have to do tomorrow is post office.

The baby cat has been an angel put in the box for most of the day. Esme has also been in the box. She's been playing with blocks and putting her toys through the tube again and feeding them with toy spoons. She did her shape worksheet one more time today - I put it out and didn't ask her to do it, but she saw it on the bed and went and did it anyway :) We watched another piglet video on youtube and then I put on Babe, the movie while she had her applesauce, bread and milk. She got bored with it about halfway through, but picked up on it again at the end. I'm thinking to get the picture encyclopedias out for her homeschool tonight, and draw some on paper with her - she is very much into pretend today. She is putting her blocks out as a 'road' across the room and having her playmobils jump jump across them and into the box at the end. 'jump dolly - jump! jump back dolly!' She's also having a lot of fun with a funnel, a piece of fine chain, the paper towel tube and a large box.


shape page


wearing Daddy's boots and playing with the paper towel tube

hoping for good news

I had my interview today - hope to know by the weekend. The interview seemed to go well. That job will be a lot more intense and more responsibility - but it is one I've wanted for a while.

When I got home Esme was in a really bad mood - she had just finished eating and didn't want me to start - she wanted to play immediately. I ate anyway, and she was mad about that a little. We've had to tell her to let us talk more often now, as she wants the only conversation to be hers, as well - 'I talk, my talk!' etc... trying to sink that ship before it gets any further - no WE talk right now, stop shushing us and eat your dinner/play toys/ etc until we're done.

Since she was in a bad mood I didn't think we'd do any 'homeschool' stuff, but then I loaded up a video of little piglets and let that go from there. When she was tired of surfing youtube with me she was a little calmer but still being bossy (no I choose - this one! (choose something I can't get to, frustration ensues etc.). We did see some great counting videos including a couple going up to one hundred and several other baby animal videos.

I gave her a bath then we played with some regular toys and I printed out another sheet of shape matching for her. She is really excellent at that 'game'. It's just putting the cut-out shape into the matching box on a sheet of paper. She did so well with the patterning blocks on her first introduction to them last week I knew she would get this little game immediately. And, she did. After that, I cut out all of the shapes out of a second copy and scattered them on the table. I gave her the colored shapes to lay back out on the scattered shapes. She got those right, too.. I stretched it and asked her to match up some of the word names of the shapes - but she could only do a few of those and they were probably guessing -- she said she wanted to go back to matching the shapes so we did a few more times.

She asked me to cut out several paper animals for her - something I do pretty well and like to do, as well. :) I made her a red doggie, a grey kitty for the dog to chase, and a green baby kitty for the mumum kitty to love and say 'you are so cute' to. Then she wanted a purple kitty and a turtle.. but I made her a rabbit and said I was done after that. Now Shaun the Sheep and ease her off to bed because we have a big day tomorrow. I have to stop by work to make a call and we have a very long grocery list.

A new phase : homeschooling

I usually cover something in a more complete way with Esme when we find something she is semi-interested in. This is far from what most people would call 'schooling' because it is based on what she wants and I'm not going to make her sit still at a desk etc or insist if she refuses a request to look/do etc. If she's not interested, that is fine - but if she is we explore the idea a bit more. I'm very 'visual' and I think she is, too - so I show her pictures whenever I am talking about something.

The 'new phase' is I'm going to keep track of what we do together a little better here on the blog under the blog tag 'homeschool'. I think what we do already is close to what they consider preschool and sometimes she is asking about things they cover in the local kindergarten (time, numbers, shapes etc.) I recently took a look at what school she would be going to someday - and when... I didn't actually go there in person yet - but I've seen some of what they are supposed to do throughout the kindergarten year - and it doesn't seem like very much more than what she already knows. I know school is a lot more about socializing with others your own age... *have to sit down and think that one over as I never got along with the kids my own age myself!*

She won't be 'eligible' for Kindergarten until she is nearly six, and would go to the same school Mark did in Bruceton. We could send her to a preschool now, if she was potty-trained... but I don't think _we're_ ready for that yet and we are trying not to lose what progress we're getting with the PT by pushing it any faster. If we are homeschooling preschool then we don't need to worry about the speed on that - she can go at her own pace. Besides the PT, I worry where she'll be by age six - what will she be doing then, if she is doing this now? But Mark said: 'Don't worry - don't care where she'll be then.... just care where she is now and what she WANTS to do.' He says we'll end up mostly homeschooling her in what she wants to learn anyway. That is true.. but I will still worry a little!

So, when I post homeschool from now on it is something we(I) sat down intentionally to show to her - based usually on things she said or did during the day (so she'll be interested) and not lasting very long, but 'fun' and 'visual' and try to mix in new things.

homeschool : black and brown bears. Esme told me 'uh uh' no bears - no black bears, big brown bears! We often say 'big brown bears going to come!' as a synonym for anything scary ... silly I know :) I told her in the bathtub that 'uh huh - there are black bears - and I'll show you some.' I showed her lots of pictures of black bears and described what they were doing, and showed her the words 'black bear' in a few places. We saw baby bears and bears eating and fighting and swimming and climbing trees. Then we saw a video of a 'mumum bear and baby bears' etc etc... and then she lost interest because the second video had no sound to it. That's still nice - she went through that much with interest :) She also found a cricket downstairs and I told her how they jump and are 'good bugs' and she said 'good bug' the same way she says 'cute kitty' and pretended to pat it on the head. 'jump bug - good job bug!' She said 'cricket' pretty well. We saw flutterbugs on the kitchen door and I showed her a big pretty moth with black stripes on his wings and all the little guys around him. We found a picture of a cricket online and she told him to jump. She also saw a flutterbug picture there (great coloring pages site: 1 and 2)

I printed out some coloring book pages from that site of a duck, an elephant with a baby and a cow - and wrote those names on them - she told me the cow pooped, and the cow needed a baby, too. I colored the duck for her and then he ate an orange from her fruit set. Her grandma and little girl playmobil jumped in and talked to and about all of the different animals - and had fun. She drew all over the three sheets and had a very very fun time with it :) Daddy and her are watching some more cartoon shows now and talking about them.

The other day I posted that we had went through 'dragon bones' of different types looking at dinosaur skeletons. We also sometimes will watch videos from the forum I belong to - like Abby playing her violin or Piper writing her name. Esme loves videos of other little kids, and of animals :)